


In From the Cold

by OddityBoddity



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Baby Animals, Bucky Barnes Feels, Happy Ending, M/M, Not Winter Soldier Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Probably Crack, farm, honestly I don't t know what the hell is wrong with me, mostly Bucky POV, not anything compliant, post cards, some steve rogers feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 14:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1985574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddityBoddity/pseuds/OddityBoddity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I just needed to have Bucky Barnes and baby animals in one story, guys. That's literally all this is.</p><p>(Second part of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1822870"> Wish You Were Here</a>, I guess)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In From the Cold

The next time Bucky’s on the Eastern Seaboard it’s because the _Michigan_ has pulled into the port of Halifax. He’s got three days of leave while the ship changes out cargo, and he goes looking for a postcard for Steve. He gets wandering, and then, because he’s got three days anyway, he figures there’s no point stopping. He winds out way out of the city, thrilling with the freedom and glad to leave people behind. It’s easier when he doesn’t have to be so careful about his arm, when he doesn’t have to pretend it’s broken and keep it tucked inside his jacket. Once he’s out of town he pulls on a pair of gloves and hitches into Kingston in the back of a pickup truck. He gets postcard from there too. Then he sits in a quiet little cafe and writes. It’s getting easier now. A couple more words every time.

 

_Did you ever think we’d live to 100? I usually didn’t even think I was going to make it to 30._

He posts it, and goes wandering. He likes little towns and sleepy libraries. He likes books, always did. And he likes the internet, and when he tells the librarian he’s from out of town, she helps him get on line. He’s starting to get caught up, and somebody on the ship told him about Wikipedia. So that’s where he goes. He doesn’t want to look at his page, just at the page for Steve Rogers. There’s a word he doesn’t know so he clicks the link and it takes him to the article on bisexuality. And then he realizes he’s reading _that_ in a _public library_ and he closes the window fast and goes without thanking the librarian.

He walks and he thinks and his head is everywhere. Eventually, he takes out that second post card, then orders a coffee at a little place with plastic-covered tables and sits down to write. Takes him a while to decide exactly what he’s going to say.

_The Internet says you’re a queer. Wish I’d known. Maybe things could have been different for both of us._

But he can’t bring himself to post that. Instead, he stuffs that one into his backpack and tries not to think about it because thinking about how they maybe missed each other, even though they were standing shoulder to shoulder all the time, it’s one too many things to regret.

He’s walking out of Kingston when he passes another post box and he throws the card in without thinking and then walks fast, as if he can get away from it. He can’t get away from it, but there are lots of things he can’t get away from and he runs anyway. Running’s starting to feel pretty natural.

Sometime after four in the afternoon the weather rolls in off the water. It comes in fast, and he left his good gear on the ship, so he goes off the road to get under cover in the brush, and when he’s soaked through and night’s falling and he realizes he’s not going to make it to the next town before night really settles in, he decides he’d better camp.

It’s awful, like the worst nights during the war, except there’s no ping and whiz of bullets or the bone-rattling concussion of bombs, just cold and wet and misery. He huddles under the cover he’s scrounged up and he shivers. He’s not going to die of the cold, but he hates it. It makes him think of the times between the missions, of coming and going from cryo, and the fullness in his lungs that felt like but wasn’t drowning, and the familiarity of the helplessness and the pain. He shivers, but not because he’s cold. He just shivers. He knows that after the cold come the orders, and after orders come blood and pain and horror.  


Around midnight he sees there’s ice on his clothes, and hanging from his hair. When a beam of light cuts through the dark, he sees snowflakes falling, then he’s blinded by the light.

“Hey,” someone calls. It’s an old voice, rough with age and too many cigarettes. When the light moves from his eyes and he blinks he can see an old man in a huge check jacket. He’s gnarled as a tree stump and white-bearded, bristling, and there’s something wet and kicking weakly under his arm. The old man comes over and looks down at him. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

Bucky looks up. It’s a lamb under the man’s arm. Hanging there with a resigned kind of expression on its little face, kicking like it's a matter of form rather than a real attempt at escape.

“You deaf?" the old man says, "What the hell is the matter with you?”

“M-matter?” Bucky asks, teeth chattering.

He squints at Bucky. “You can’t stay out here, kid, you stupid? You’re going to get hypothermia.”

“I’m cold,” Bucky agrees.

The old man grunts. “You sure as shit are.” He frowns. “Come on. The barn’s dry.”

Bucky gets to his feet, aching and stiff with the cold, and follows the old man.

The barn isn’t far from where Bucky stopped walking. It’s a big, old fashioned one, probably even red, though he can’t really tell in the dark. The old man pulls open a small door and goes in and warm air, fragrant with the smells of hay and animal and wet wool rushes over Bucky. He shivers once more, because the cold leaving him is like waking from a nightmare, and he coughs. He used to do it to clear his lungs, but it’s habit now to do it when he’s been cold.

He hesitates at the threshold. He doesn’t like to be cold, but the warming up after, the warming up means a mission and it means blood and death. He doesn’t like the feeling of warming up.

The old man looks at him. “You got somewhere else to go?” he demands.

“No, sir.”

“Well then get in here.”

Bucky follows the old man in.

 

Inside, the barn is divided into two rows of stalls on either side of the main area, and the floor is shin-deep in straw. There are two electric lanterns hang from the rafters, and in the soft glow of the light he sees maybe two dozen sheep turn to see who’s come in. The old man puts the lamb he’s carrying down and one of the sheep bleats like it’s burping and comes trotting over to the nose the frail little thing.

“And you keep an eye on her next time, you hear?” the old man says, addressing the sheep. He looks over at Bucky and then points to an area sectioned off from the rest and heaped up with hay. “There’s a wool blanket in that box over there, that’ll keep you warm. You go get your wet things off and bed down in the hay. And don’t you bother the ewes.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, and goes.  


It’s not as warm over here, but it’s not cold either, so it’s not awful like it was. He finds the blanket and shakes a moth cocoon out of it, then goes over to the corner and strips off his wet things and wraps himself up. He’s hanging his things up on empty harness hooks when he hears the noises. He looks over the stall door.

One of the ewes is on her side making strange, short little noises. The old man goes over and looks down at her. “You need a bit of help there old girl?” he asks. Bucky stares. The old man kneels down and the ewe grunts and kicks and then the old man’s got a pair of little lamb legs in his hands and he’s pulling a lamb free of its mother. It’s goopy and slick and wet and it’s _tiny_.

The lamb lies there for a moment, little ears twitching, then the ewe turns and begins to lick it clean and it, heedless of its mother, gets up to its feet and stumbles around like a drunk, and bleats. The old man leans back and nods. “You got another on in there?” he asks the ewe, and then, like a magician and assistant, they produce second lamb. Then old man smiles and nods, and stands up and goes over to a towel hanging off a nail on a beam.

Bucky sees him taking a head count while he wipes his hands on the towel. Then he nods and retreats to a little nest he’s got set up against one side of the stall. There’s a blanket there and a cell phone and a thermos bottle that Bucky figures probably has coffee in it. The old man settles down and picks up a tattered magazine with _Homesteader and Crofter_ emblazoned on the front.

Bucky settles into the hay. If he heaps it up right, he can look between the rails and watch the lambs as they get their feet. He’s not freezing any more, and he’s got his metal arm tucked under the blanket where it won't glint in the light. The lambs are stupid and curious and the ewes are tired and attentive. He watches them a bit, and he even sleeps a little.

 

Toward dawn he hears the noises, the grunting and the huffing of one of the ewes having trouble. He opens his eyes and sees the ewe lying on her side in the hay. She’s almost within arm’s reach. He waits but the farmer doesn’t say anything, or come over to check, so Bucky sits up. The farmer’s on the far side of the barn, helping another one of the ewes. Bucky wraps the blanket around him to hide his arm. He gets to his feet.

“Hey,” he says. He says it quietly, but the farmer looks up. “This one’s having trouble.”

“So is she,” the farmer says. He looks Bucky up and down. “You ever lambed before?”

“No, sir.”

“Well go over to her rear end and tell me if you can see any feet.”

Bucky has misgivings but he’s just gotten warm after a long cold, so following orders, even weird ones, feels right. He pulls on his still-soaked pants and he goes through the rails to where the ewe is lying in the hay, her sides heaving. He looks. It’s a sheep’s rear end, that’s for sure.

“Nothing yet,” he said, then things change and the ewe grunts, and Bucky blinks and says, “uh, I think that might be hoof.”

“You just go ahead and grab that, nice and gentle, mind.”

Orders are orders, but this is almost certainly the first time he’s ever been ordered to put his hand inside the rear end of a farm animal. He reaches with his flesh hand. The ewe is warm and mucky and the little lamb’s legs feels thin and brittle.

“What are you doing, son? Both hands, both hands.”

He doesn’t want to touch the lamb with his metal hand. That hand is for killing. That hand is the part of him that is a monster. It’s an order, but he’s afraid to obey.

“Listen, boy, if you’re not going to help her proper you get away from her, you’ll slow her down and then she’ll really be in trouble.”

He nods. He understands what that means. He reaches with both hands, feels the little, brittle bones under his fingers and tells himself _be gentle, be very gentle_ , even though the prosthetic is a work of art, and registers even the most minuscule change of pressure. He doesn't trust it like he doesn't trust himself.  


“Now pull, gentle like, when she’s pushing.”

He does, and finds it takes so little effort. The lamb comes slipping out and he lets go of it. A little head-shake, the mother’s nudging. Up onto its feet. Then she makes that grunting noise again and her sides heave. Bucky looks.

“Uh, more feet, more feet,” he calls.

The old farmer is climbing slowly to his feet, wiping his hands on a stained old piece of towel as he does. “That’s normal, they usually have two, sometimes three. Go on, same as before.”

He does. It’s easy. The little lamb comes out and bleats a noise like a bad car horn, then shivers and gets nudged to its feet too. The old man nods and thumbs a little mucus off the lamb’s nose. Then he passes the towel over. “Not bad,” he says as Bucky wipes his hands. The old man looks down at him and Bucky knows he’s looking at the metal. It’s pretty hard to miss.

“Problem?” he asks. It’s more aggressive than he wanted it to be.

“You might want to clean that thing proper,” the old man says. “There’s a sink through there.”

Bucky nods. He goes and scrubs up with sliver of bright pink soap and when he comes back the lambs, his lambs, are climbing on anything inert, including one another, and other sheep. He smiles. The old man looks up from his magazine.

“They’re cute,” Bucky says.

“Well I got another hundred and fifty of ‘em coming in the next five days,” the old man says. “And I’m too old to do this on my own any more. You looking for work?”

Bucky shrugs.

“You do nights in the barn, and you can have room and board. The wife makes corned beef hash on Sundays. You stay the week, I’ll give you two hundred bucks.”

He thinks about it. A week of sleeplessness and looking at sheep butts. He thinks about the ship, and that job, and then wonders what the mess is going to do to his prosthetic. While he's standing there, one of his lambs comes over and bleats at him. “Get lost,” he tells it. It stands for a minute, unafraid, and then skips away. He laughs. It’s the first time he’s laughed in a long, long time.

“Deal,” he says.

 

Two weeks later, Steve gets three postcards back to back. The first, on Monday, makes him smile faintly. The second one, on Tuesday, is like a blow to the chest. He takes it into the kitchen and then stands at the counter just breathing for a long, long time.

On Wednesday someone knocks on the door. He opens it. He’s not sure what he was expecting but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t Bucky, dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt, all of it covered by a hard-worn waterproof jacket that seems to almost swallow him up. But here he is, standing on his welcome mat, looking back at him. He’s got a big kit bag over his shoulder and a backpack at his feet, and a post card in his metal hand. He hands it to Steve and Steve looks.

It’s a picture of a pastoral landscape, dotted with sheep. A watercolour. _Kingston, Nova Scotia_ , the text says, but other than that it’s blank. He looks at Bucky, standing there and silent.  


“You didn’t write anything,” he says, and knows it’s stupid but he can’t think of anything else to say.

Bucky shrugs. “It’s a long story. Won’t fit on the postcard.”

“Oh,” Steve says.

Bucky looks down. “You said…”

“Yeah.”

“So can I?”

Steve bends down and takes the backpack from at Bucky’s feet. “Come on.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
